Archives by: Gary Hoag

“Consumerism confronts North American Christians as a central problem of our lives. It presents the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God’s abundance on the one hand, and the power of our belief in scarcity on the other hand. Scarcity works on fear that God’s grace will run out. It assumes that money is security and that there won’t be enough resources for all. Based on market economics, scarcity begins not with our limited needs but with our unlimited wants. As long as we believe that more is always better, we will never have enough…Jesus revealed the reign of God as a different kind of economy, one that is infused with abundance and self-giving generosity. Living out our gratitude, we are called to trust God’s generosity.”

Walter Brueggemann in “The Liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity” in The Christian Century, March 24-31, 1999: 342-347.

“There is no room in Christianity for people who are unwilling to give of themselves, and this statement is made in love and for the sake of people themselves.”

Richard Byfield and James Shaw in Your Money and Your God (Garden City: Doubleday, May 1959) 55-56.

“When the funds are not coming in and the budget is not being met in the church, several temptations arise. One is to condemn and exhort the misers by publishing a list of contributions; another is to seek to squeeze out a bigger flow of funds by some new and more clever fundraising approach. The proper strategy is always to dig deeper and to use the Gospel, God’s dynamite, to blast open the way to an inexhaustible underground river of God’s grace.”

Harry G. Coiner in “The Secret of God’s Plan,” Concordia Theological Monthly XXXIV, no. 5 (May 1963): 274.

“There is no shortage of money in the church. There is a shortage of good stewardship. One of the obvious needs of congregations and of denominations is to overcome financial crises. Yet, the great predicament in the church is not a lack of finances, but a lack of stewardship understanding and training in God’s Word, which alone provides the direction and power for Christian giving. Provide a person with understanding, and he (or she) will likely make a proper response through the Spirit’s guidance.”

Waldo J. Werning in Christian Stewards: Confronted and Committed (St. Louis: Concordia, 1982) 1.

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mark 8:34-35

“I have experienced the fullness of one of the great paradoxes: We find ourselves only when we lose ourselves, in God.”

Charles Colson with Harold Fickett in The Good Life: Seeking Purpose, Meaning and Truth in Your Life (Tyndale, 2005) 132.

“It was at Drainside, Taylor learned one can trust God with his last cent. He had been called out late one night to witness to and pray over a sick woman with starving children. As he tried to pray, his words choked in his mouth because he had in his possession a silver coin that would answer his prayer and alleviate their sufferings somewhat.

“Hypocrite!” he heard his heart condemn him. “Telling people about a kind and loving Father in Heaven—and not prepared to trust Him yourself, without your money!” He gave them his last coin—only one bowl of porridge between him and poverty! As he ate that last meal he remembered the Scripture, “He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.”

The next day he received a package. In it was a gold coin—worth ten times the silver coin. Taylor cried out triumphantly, “That’s good interest! Ha! Ha! Invested in God’s bank for twelve hours and it brings me this! That’s the bank for me!”

J. Hudson Taylor: Pioneer Missionary (1832-1905) in Missionary Biographies by Fred Barlow (Profiles in Evangelism, 1976).

“Giving ourselves to Christ’s service, at the cost of serving our own plans for ourselves, whatever their source and whatever their merit, is the response of faith and the cost of discipleship…It is about giving away our lives so we can secure them for eternity…The collective testimony of the saints who have gone before is is that Jesus did not lie about the way to let life slip away and the way to find life and keep it forever.”

David A. DeSilva in Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation through the Book of Common Prayer (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000) 192.

“If evangelism is telling the good news of God’s love, then stewardship is showing the good news by the way we live.”

Betsy Schwarzentraub in Afire with God: Becoming Spirited Stewards (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000) 13.

“Surely it must be confessed to be a matter of small account to sacrifice a little worldly comfort and prosperity during the short span of our existence in this life, in order to secure a crown of eternal glory, and the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at God’s right hand for evermore! It might be added also, that our blessed Saviour had fairly declared, that it would often be required of Christians to make such a sacrifice; and had forewarned us, that, in order to be able to do it with cheerfulness whenever the occasion should arrive, we must habitually sit loose to all worldly possessions and enjoyments.”

Wlliam Wilberforce (1759-1833) A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians with the Higher and Middle Classes contrasted with Real Christianity (Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1815) 290-291.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel, will save it. Mark 8:35

“America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, etc.

Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice…

Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves, we have nearly lost ourselves.”

Ralph Winter in “Reconsecration to a Wartime, not a Peacetime, Lifestyle” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 2nd edition (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1999) 706.